By Kelly "Indygirl" Brown and Ron Felix

May 28, 2003

Our Indy Car reporter, Kelly Brown, was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to cover that end of Robby Gordon's double run day while Ron Felix was at the Lowe's Motor Speedway to cover the final leg of what turned out to be an extremely long day for everyone involved.

Kelly gives her account of the weekend at Indy and I'll fill in the second half at Charlotte.



The Double - Indianapolis Motor Speedway

By Kelly "Indygirl" Brown

Kelly Brown Photos

It is Thursday afternoon, before the Indianapolis 500, Carb Day. A driver emerges from his garage, does a few interviews and signs a few autographs. The driver’s car owner and teammate watches on while he finishes up some loose ends. Then this driver turns around and apologies to everyone that has gathered around to see him, saying "Sorry guys, I have to get to Charlotte." The crowd parts and lets him jump on a golf cart to make the journey to the east. As you can imagine this is not your typical driver, it is open wheel turned, albeit sometimes controversial, NASCAR star Robby Gordon. And this teammate and owner are not your typical Indy Car veterans, it is Richard Childress and Kevin Harvick all the way from NASCAR country. You could say that Robby’s final words to the fans were perfect, because it set the mood for this grueling feat he was about to attempt yet again. I have to get to Charlotte.

"The Double" as it has been called was first attempted by John Andretti in 1994. It was not the most successful campaign, but it started a trend. Since then Andretti has not tried this 1,100 mile marathon again, but two drivers have followed in his foot steps. The most successful in both the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 was Tony Stewart. But the man who has attempted this rigorous feat the most times has been Robby Gordon. Since 1999, when Robby came about a gallon of fuel away from winning the race, it seems he is a man on a mission. It has been said that you can take the driver out of Indy, but you cannot take Indy out of a drivers blood. The closer you get to winning, the harder it is to sit and watch. This seems to describe Robby’s drive to conquer the famous 2.5 mile speedway.

Going into May it did not look like Robby would get the opportunity to drive in the 500. But as fate would have it, IRL regular Dario Franchitti, was not cleared to drive after an injury he suffered at the series previous race in Japan. This left a ride open at Andretti Green Racing that was very sought after, since it is Honda’s premiere race team in the IRL. It came to the surprise to many when it was announced that Robby would fill this seat, but it also came with the assurance that Robby was with a team that could win the Indianapolis 500.

Kelly Brown Photos

The day began for Robby has he entered the Indy Garage area at approximately 9:00 am. It wasn’t long until he changed into his uniform and headed to the infield care center to take on an IV, so he could stay hydrated during all 1,100 miles. First of many steps that he would take throughout the day. As the green flag flew Robby began third on the grid and held strong there until the caution came out at lap seven, when Billy Boat’s Chevy blew an engine. At this time Robby’s team decided to pit for fuel only and fell back to 20th. Would fuel strategy win Robby the race? It looked like it may just play out that way.

When the caution waved for Sarah Fisher, after her engine blew and she hit the wall in turn three after slipping in her own oil. It seemed that fate may just be smiling on Robby today, as he was moved up to the fourth position after the whole field pitted and he elected to stay out. He held his spot, until lap 26 which began a steady back slide for Robby. At first it did not seem too bad as he held strong in the top ten until lap 45. Five laps later the car looked well off the pace as he slid back to 13th before pitting. This move trapped him in 21st when Robby Buhl, spun on pit road nine laps later. At that time the car did not seem to have the speed it once had, so the team took the opportunity to check the car out when Richie Hearn met the turn two wall. After that checkup, Robby slowly began to move up in the field again reaching 10th place by lap 101. Half way and back to the top ten, but would the engine gremlins resurface?

Kelly Brown Photos

On lap 127 Robby was running in a pack with Airton Dare, when Dare got out of the groove to miss a slower car. Dare got up into the marbles and ended up in the wall. At that point Robby took evasive action and ended up with two tires in the grass. Under yellow Robby pitted once returning to the race in 10th place, but he noticed something and brought the car back in to have it examined. This dropped him back to 14th, being the last car on the lead lap. He stayed in that position until lap 170 when a slow red white and blue car emerged on the back stretch. Robby was at barely a creep as he dove onto the pit access road in turn three. Unfortunately, he did not make it back around to the pits and caused a caution to come out.

It was apparent at that point Robby’s 500 mile race was over at this point. The reason, he was quoted saying the gear box gave out and the engine had been idling the whole race. It was the end of Indy dreams for Robby Gordon, he will have to wait a whole year before getting the chance to hit the track in an IRL car again. Of course he did not have much time to dwell on that, after all he did have another race waiting for him. Out of the day in Indy and into the night in Charlotte.

Gordon jumped on a golf cart for the infield care center, where an IV was started for Gordon to receive fluids. He then was driven in a car behind a police escort to his rental car parked nearby. Gordon and his guests piled into the rental car and continued behind the police escort to the Indianapolis airport where a Cessna Citation X jet was waiting.

The Double - Lowe's Motor Speedway

By Ron Felix

One hour later, Gordon was on the ground at the Concord airport, from where he took a helicopter into Lowe’s Motor Speedway just in time for drivers’ introductions. Because of an elevated terrorist threat, air traffic had been banned from flying over the race tracks, both Indy and Lowe's. That forced a change in plans for Gordon since he had hired a helicopter company to fly him to and from the airports at both tracks.

Sherryl Creekmore/NASCAR

There was one exception to the flight rule however, medical helicopters could fly near and over the tracks. Since Gordon had a medical procedure performed (the IV), Gordon was allowed to enter the restricted air space in the medical helicopter and he made it just in time for drivers’ introductions.

The NASCAR rules state that a driver has to start at the rear of the field if he misses the drivers meeting. Since Gordon was still making his way from Indy, it became necessary to fall to the rear of the 43 car field before the green flag dropped.

At lap 106 the red flag came out for rain and Gordon had moved into the 36th position. Nothing great but he was moving forward. When the red flag was lifted and racing resumed, Gordon's No. 31 Cingular Chevrolet developed a tight condition, forcing him to make another pit stop on lap 130, under caution, to free up the car. Gordon lost a lap to the leaders while struggling with the ill-handling machine.

Sherryl Creekmore/NASCAR

As the race wore on Crew chief Kevin Hamlin and team made a few more chassis adjustments. The car was handling better but at lap 202 Gordon entered pit road before he should have because he was nearly out of fuel. There was a yellow flag at the time, but the pits were still closed. It was either risk running out of gas or taking a penalty. The team opted for the penalty.

Team Cingular elected to spend a few extra seconds in the pits and give up a couple of spots because they knew they had a car capable of making up that ground and finishing in the top five. Unfortunately, heavy rain began falling after the completion of 276 laps and NASCAR called the race 134 laps early, crediting Gordon with the 17th position.

The time between the Winston and the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway was fairly uneventful for Robby Gordon, leading up to the weekend mainly because of all the rain that had fallen in the area the past week. It started wet and ended wet.

The fans roared their disapproval that the race was called off so abruptly. Many of the drivers also were upset that it was called at 9:30 PM, not giving them a chance to improve their positions. Mike Helton, President of NASCAR, explained that it would have taken too long to get the track dry, even though the rain had ended. Jimmie Johnson, by default, was declared the winner.

So Robby Gordon's double day at Indy and Charlotte was a disappointment for him, finishing 22nd and 17th respectively.

Gordon's comments at the end of a long day:

“I feel great right now and I think I’ll be fine tomorrow. We came 25 laps short at Indy because of a broken gearbox, and that’s 100 miles, and we’re obviously 134 laps short at Charlotte because of rain. I would have definitely finished this race and hopefully had at least a top-10 finish if this race hadn’t been called. I think it was pretty weak that the race was called as early as it was because they could have gotten the track dried and finished up the show for the fans.

"I’m disappointed because we had a good car. I wanted to be able to finish the 600. The later and cooler it got, the better the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet was. We lost the car in the daylight but as we worked on it and the sun went down, the car got better and better. We just needed the out-front track position to get some clean air on our car. We slid around too much on old tires and tires were worth a lot tonight.

“Seventeenth place at Charlotte is pretty weak because we had a better car than that. We got lapped when the sun was out because we were too tight but we got that worked out and could have had a top-10 finish. We should have stayed out during that last caution instead of pitting to make the car closer to perfect and we would have had an 11th-place finish. I was feeling fine to go the distance for the whole 600 miles and it wouldn’t have been a problem. It was just great being able to be in both races. We had great car but it just didn't work out at either race."

Gordon gained one position in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings to 12th and is only 71 points out of 10th.

You can contact Kelly at.. Insider Racing News

You can contact Ron at.. Insider Racing News